The Latvian big man was originally drafted by the Pacers in the second round of the 2011 Draft. He didn't get to spend much time as a member of the Pacer organization as he was traded that evening as a package with some guy named Kawhi Leonard for George Hill. After being a starter on three Serbian League title teams with Adriatic giants Partizan, Bertans came to America in 2016 and very quickly took the role that Matt Bonner would leave behind with the Spurs. He's been a launch pad from three since for both San Antonio and now with the Wizards. Bertans did not take his talents to the bubble during the NBA's restart, but as an impending free agent with a history of knee injuries I don't blame the Latvian Launcher (nickname patent pending) for biding his time. His patience was rewarded with a 5 year, $80 million pact with the Wiz.
Bodiroga was easily one of the oldest folks left on the DRR list when the Kings finally realized they probably should renounce the rights of a player they drafted in 1995 in the summer of 2017. Yes, it took 22 years, and 10 after he retired from professional basketball, for the Kings to finally make the decorated Euroleague legend an unrestricted free agent. The two-time FIBA World Cup winner with Yugoslavia made no friends in Spain playing for both Real Madrid and Barcelona but also starred in Italy and Greece when both leagues were arguably at their competitive apex. In 2008, he was named one of the 50 Most Greatest EuroLeague Contributors, a list also featuring Manu Ginobili, Vlade Divac, Toni Kukoc, Bob McAdoo, and Arvydas Sabonis. And while Bertans above was drafted by Indiana, never bring up the the Hoosier State to Dejan.
His career may still be ongoing, but so far Alec Brown's "tenure" in the NBA was very short-lived. Injuries derailed the Green Bay defensive standout's chance to be Channing Frye's potential successor in Phoenix upon his drafting. It seemed him shooting 18 from 25 from three-point range in a pre-draft workout was enough to wow every draft evaluator in the organization. It took three years of basketball backpacking and summer league frustration for Brown to finally get his name on the dotted line of a contract. It took three days for that contract to be placed on waivers. Brown is still just 28 and playing for Estudiantes in Spain, yet that wasn't going very well. His club was dead set on relegation before the COVID-19 Pandemic paused the Spanish League season.
Take a look at Vlatko Cancar's game log and as an American sports fan you'd be flabbergasted that he's only 23. The Slovenian began his professional career in 2012 in his native land with Koš Koper, a team that no longer exists (they merged with KK Lastovka in 2016). He quickly moved on to Slovenian juggernauts Union Olimpija and eventually to Serbian side KK Mega Leks where he replaced current Nuggets teammate Nikola Jokic. He spent two years in Spain before joining the Nuggets ultimately before this cursed season. Cancar has been on the bench during the entirety of the Nuggets' magical playoff run thus far injured with a broken foot but should be in their plans going forward with a plethora of Denver forwards entering free agency.
The first of a few in the “If I finished this when I originally intended he wouldn’t be in this post” is former Penn State Nittany Lion Tony Carr. After winning the NIT with Penn State his sophomore season, Carr was selected 51st overall by the Pelicans in 2018. He spent two seasons with three teams in Italy and Russia before returning to the US in January 2020 with New Orleans’ G-League side Erie. He averaged nearly 9.5 points per game primarily off of the bench before the season was called to halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The timing of Carr finally escaping the DRR ranks on December 1st is unfortunate with the acquisition of Eric Bledsoe and drafting of Kira Lewis, but here’s hoping he doesn’t end up like so many of these profiles and find himself released by 2021.
Coming out of Xavier, I was plenty familiar with Semaj Christon. He terrorized both of the major collegiate basketball teams in Rhode Island as Xavier jumped from the Atlantic 10 (w/ URI) to the Big East (w/ PC) between his freshman and sophomore seasons. I thought received some bad advice in being told he was going to be a first round pick after his much improved second season with the Musketeers and felt vindicated when he lasted until Pick 55 in the 2014 NBA Draft. He would be traded twice on that night from the Heat to the Hornets to eventually the Thunder. In the aftermath of the Series That Won't Be Named in the 2016 Playoffs, OKC would give him his first shot as Russell Westbrook's backup in 2016 and actually got into 64 games. Alas, that is his entire NBA career to date as he's been well traveled (five countries in four years) since.
The UCONN product struck while the iron was hot after making the All-Tournament Team in the Huskies' 2014 NCAA Championship victory. Here decided to forego his final season in Storrs with the hope that he would join his teammate Shabazz Napier in the first round of the NBA Draft. As is the case with many of the players that find their way to Draft Rights Retained, Daniels ended up in the second round but seemingly lucked out with being drafted by the emerging Toronto Raptors. However, that emergence came from an overabundance on the perimeter and Daniels couldn't usurp anybody with his Summer League play. Daniels never found consistent minutes or production in the G-League and eventually had his rights renounced in the summer of 2017. He made his first sojourn out of the USA this past year playing for KTP Basket in Finland, a team that once employed former URI Ram LaMonte Ulmer.
It stinks for Devon Hall that his senior year at Virginia ended in ignominy (first 1-seed to lose in NCAA Tourney) rather than the glory (NCAA Title) of a year later. He was never THE guy in Charlottesville yet did enough to be selected as the 53rd overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft. After a quick stint in the Oceanic NBL, Hall began his seesaw apprenticeship in Oklahoma shooting up and down between the Thunder and their G-League affiliate before finally getting his first minutes in 2019-20 with the Thunder proper. He was signed to a substitute contract for OKC's bubble run and subsequent playoff tenure but didn't see a single minute of playing time. It will be fascinating to see if the Thunder's trade of Chris Paul inadvertently clears a path for a roster spot for Hall in 2020-21.
The Quebec native was a force at Boston College during his three years. While his statistical output increased through his junior season, Hanlan's impact was most felt during his freshman season in Chestnut Hill. The Eagles never had a winning record during his tenure but his ACC Rookie of the Year campaign saw him set scoring records as well as taking the league's best teams to the limit. I am harping on his collegiate accolades because Hanlan's NBA career lasted just as long as poor Alec Brown's. He was dealt to the former NBA Champions from Utah for Boris Diaw, but was allocated to the Austin Spurs in the G-League. He finally signed with the big club in September 2018, but was waived three days later. He's played in Germany, Greece, and his native Canada since his release. He's still just 27 so if he circles back to the NBA I may actually remember the second "I" in his first name.
Andrew and his twin brother Aaron were high school basketball phenoms and McDonald's All-Americans. That hype train didn't end when they both chose to attend the University of Kentucky. They made the NCAA Title game their freshman year and the Final Four in their sophomore year. Seeing the writing on the wall with over half of the Wildcats declaring for the NBA Draft, Harrison did the same. While his brother was the only early entrant to go undrafted, the Suns took Andrew with the 44th overall pick. He would be traded to Memphis for Jon Leuer and that is where he'd get his NBA start. He'd get decent run with the Grizzlies and even got playoff playing time. But I would like more than anything to talk about Harrison's short stint in Russia. At Khimki, he played with former DRR Profile Recipient Janis Timma. Upon his departure, he was replaced by Davis Bertans' older brother Dairis. Full circle shit, folks.
When the 2015 NBA Draft concluded, I wasn't a happy camper. The Knicks had not one, but two pieces of what I so eloquently referred to as "Eurotrash" to cement the fears set forth by The Human Hurdle Frederic Weis. But Kristaps Porzingis won me over with his debut campaign and his Sevilla teammate, Willy Hernangomez, would do the same the next year. The two European big men brought a sense of optimism to Madison Square Garden so of course we couldn't have that. After making the All-Rookie First Team, Hernangomez was traded to Charlotte in his second season after having his minutes cut in half. The player New York traded for, Johnny O'Bryant III, was waived the next day. Hernangomez has been with the Hornets ever since and has yet to recreate his rookie season production to date. Hopefully he can find a fresh start this winter when he goes into free agency at age 25.
Like fellow 2018 Thunder second-rounder Devon Hall, the first UT-Arlington player drafted into the NBA in over 25 years had a topsy-turvy tenure in the Oklahoma capital. Hervey began his professional hoops career with the Oklahoma City Blue in the G-League and played activation/deactivation tennis with the team before getting the call to play for the parent club on a two-way contract in December 2019. OKC formally renounced his rights with the pact. This "stability" lasted just a paltry ten games in which Hervey scored 17 total points. He has recently signed in Russia where he will play alongside longtime NBA guard Jordan Crawford and one-time Knick Mindaugas Kuzminskas who infamously was released to make way for the returning Joakim Noah fresh off suspension and possessing one of the worst contracts in NBA history. (I apologize to Kevin Hervey for that hard left at the end there. However, some wounds are still too fresh.)
There are three people in the Basketball Reference database with the surname Iverson. Willie played in the ABA in 1969 for the Miami Floridians. The second is some guy named Allen who I guess was kinda good. The third, and the only one not to play professionally in the United States, is Colton. The seven footer transferred to Colorado State from Minnesota for his senior year and was subsequently drafted 53rd overall by the Pacers in 2013. He was traded to the Celtics on draft night for cash. He played two years in the Summer League for the Celtics but was never tendered a full contract for the club. His rights were renounced after his second spell in the Orlando Summer League as he fought a legal battle following a combative transfer from Spain to Turkey. He racked up an Israeli Cup victory with Maccabi Tel-Aviv in 2017 and made the All-Champions League second team with runners-up Iberostar Tenerife in 2019. He currently plays ball in New Zealand.
The Spurs looked like they were ahead of the game again in 2013 when they used the 28th pick of the NBA Draft on French forward Livio-Jean Charles. The reigning French League Young Player of the Year, an award also won by the likes of Tony Parker, Nicolas Batum, and more recently Frank Ntilikina and Theo Maledon, was seemingly another draft and stash that the reigning Western Conference winners were going to use to keep themselves at the forefront. Instead, Jean-Charles spent the majority of his time in the States playing in Austin rather than San Antonio. Three months to the day after signing for the Spurs proper, he was waived with only five preseason games to show for it. I guess he wasn't the next diamond in the rough after all and became just the fifth first round pick to be renounced or waived before playing an NBA game.
It was inevitable that there was going to be some crossover throughout this massive list. Dakari Johnson is the second member of the 2015 Kentucky Wildcats to find his way to this chasm and the fourth Thunder player from the 2016-2019 period to be on the OKC seesaw. He was part of the mass exodus in Lexington after losing to Wisconsin in the Final Four and like Andrew Harrison was selected in the second round of the Draft. While the other Thunder players profiled thus far couldn't truly handle the constant up and down, Johnson thrived in the NBA's minor league. He was an All-Star and a First Team All-D League in 2017. He's been just as good in his tenure in China winning a title and an MVP between the country's two leagues. Despite being just 25, unless he develops a shot there probably won't be a place for the 7-footer in today's spread and shoot NBA.
Teams have shown in today’s climate that they can be incredibly resourceful and creative with how they can circumvent the NBA’s financial restrictions. Take the case of Chuma Okeke, now a member of the Orlando Magic as of November 16th. The former Auburn standout slid to the middle of the first round in the 2019 Draft leaving some thinking the absolute worst when it came to the defensive dynamo’s torn ACL in the NCAA Tournament. Knowing that they couldn’t do the normal shenanigans available to teams with foreign players and second rounders, Orlando stunted his service clock one extra year by assigning him to their G-League affiliate with no intentions of him ever suiting up. So now Orlando gets to start from scratch this season instead of having a dead year like Philly did with Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid and the Clippers did with Blake Griffin. GM John Hammond's job probably depends on Okeke being more like those three than any of his other picks during his tenure.
Cedi Osman is a true rarity on Draft Rights Retained. The Turkish international was drafted in the second round of the 2015 NBA Draft by the Timberwolves. He was sent to the Cavaliers as part of a package to bring Duke guard Tyus Jones to the City of Lakes on draft night. Two years later, Osman made his debut after finishing his contract with Turkish powerhouse Anadolu Efes. He was a serviceable understudy to LeBron James during the King’s final season with the Cavs, scoring 18 points (against the Knicks, who else) in the season finale. Upon James’ second departure from the club, Osman has started all but one game on the wing for Cleveland. While he isn’t the second coming, he has been a valuable enough asset for the club to receive a four-year contract extension in the fall of 2019, keeping him until at least the end of the 2023-2024 season.
It almost feels like it was yesterday that the 76ers were just stockpiling big men with first round picks as they continued their “Process.” Latvian big man Anzejs Pasecniks wasn’t drafted by the Sixers originally, but was acquired by the club on Draft Night 2017 from Orlando for two future picks. Philadelphia tried to keep the 7-footer in play as long as possible, even going to the league to have the first round cap hold removed in 2018 to help attempt to balance their increasingly spiraling books. Sadly for Pasecniks, that one year grace period from the league office only meant that his rights would be renounced on that same day in 2019. Thankfully, this story has a happy ending to date. The Wizards snapped him up and after an early release and the uncertainty of a two-way contract, he signed a multi-year deal with the club in January.
The second Cavalier on this list but the first in terms of names most likely to be used during Key & Peele’s East/West Bowl skit, Sir’Dominic Pointer is the next man up. He was the co-winner of the 2015 Big East Defensive Player of the Year award with PC’s Kris Dunn yet could only muster second-team All-Big East honors. After graduation, he was selected 53rd overall by Cleveland. Pointer spent his first professional season with Cleveland’s G-League affiliate, Canton, before three years in Israel, Lebanon, and Hungary. He returned to the US for Cleveland’s Summer League session in 2018 and played for the Charge up until he was given a ten-day contract with the parent club on March 4th. Sadly, y’all know how this chapter ends as Rudy Gobert’s positive test put the NBA season on the shelf and Pointer’s 10-day expired. With Cleveland not in playoff contention, Pointer’s season ended before he could even make his debut. Let’s hope his inclusion on Team USA’s FIBA AmeriCup Qualifying roster keeps him in the mind of front offices for the 2020-21 campaign.
If the one person that used to read these with regularity asked me which player I would be most disappointed about being in one of these recap pieces, it would be Ryan Richards. He has the mustache of an early 1900’s silent movie villain, hails from “basketball hotbed” England, and has plied his trade in the national leagues of SIXTEEN countries. Richards has been a part of ESPN’s The Basketball Tournament twice, winning in 2016 with the dominant tourney outfit Overseas Elite just one month before his NBA dream would come and go with San Antonio in the span of twenty training camp days. That call came six years and two summer leagues after the five-time champions drafted him 49th overall during his lone season in Spain. The Chatham native is still just 29 but it looks as if a return to the League is on a tremendously craggy path and that’s being incredibly generous. But given his globetrotting exploits through the first decade of his basketball journey, Richards isn’t going to have to worry about working, even in the current professional pandemic climate.
I have a checkered past with European lottery picks but for the most part if they aren’t getting drafted to the Knicks I can generate an unbiased opinion as to whether a guy will pan out or not. Then there’s Dario Saric. He had all the accolades you could ask for and I’m fairly certain his teasing of general managers in 2013 followed by a contentious transfer ahead of the 2014 Draft led him to slip to 12th overall to Orlando. The Sixers traded for him on that evening and I thought he, Joel Embiid, and the freshly drafted Ben Simmons were going to make Philadelphia a force for the next decade. Now while Philly has been formidable and Saric is still an NBA starter, neither made that leap I foresaw. At 26, Saric could find that next gear potentially with a Suns team that just got one of the greatest point guards of all-time. But unless he shoots up from a 12.2 career PPG scorer to double that overnight, with Devin Booker still being on the team, this is another international scouting L for yours truly.
Czech international Tomas Satoransky is one of those players that consistently will win your team’s version of Boston’s “Tommy Points”. He was drafted as the second pick of the second round in 2012 from Sevilla, the pre-draft team of Kristaps Porzingis and above profile Willy Hernangomez. After a Spanish Supercup victory in 2015 and the Most Spectacular Player Award in 2016 with Barcelona, Satoransky came to the US for Washington and played 57 games during his rookie season. After three increasingly productive years in the nation’s capital, Tomas was traded to Chicago in a sign-and-trade for a duo of second-round pick swaps. On the surface that sounds like an insult but have you’ve seen what GMs give away these days for any draft picks? The 5x Czech Player of the Year started all but one game in the shortened season for Chicago and figures to be in the new Baby Bulls’ plans in an even bigger role for at least the new two seasons.
Chalk this one up, as well as DRR profile #5 Ben Pepper, as a clerical error by me when originally compiling the Draft Rights Retained Database. Taken by the Sonics and traded shortly thereafter to Boston, Croatian guard Josip Sesar never even made an overture about playing outside of the Balkans. While it is nobody’s fault but my own that I missed the fact that both Pepper and Sesar had their rights renounced by the Celtics on October 1, 2010, the fact that it took over a decade for each player to have said rights renounced is also a problem unto itself. Kudos to him for winning the Croatian League five straight times, but no kudos to me missing a column in a document and now making you aware of that accomplishment.
By a margin of hours, Deividas Sirvydis is the most recently signed DRR player to make it to this piece. The Lithuanian second-generation lefty was drafted 37th overall in 2019, nine spots in front of the “new greatest player ever” Talen Horton-Tucker. The Mavericks selected him that evening but traded him immediately to the Pistons for the player drafted directly before THT, Isaiah Roby. Similar to the Kevin Hervey profile, I’m going off on a tangent due to something peripherally dumb that has nothing to do with the player at hand and I apologize for that. However, I will try to make up for it by bringing everything together with a binding accomplishment for Sirvydis. That achievement of course is the fact that he is a former winner of the Adidas Next Generation Tournament MVP. Other former winners include two players from earlier, Livio-Jean Charles and Dario Saric (as well as Luka Doncic to nobody’s surprise).
Trying to do research on “Marcus Thornton, basketball player” is a giant pain in the ass. There are three of them all spelled the same all born within five years of each other and are in no way related. The one here is the former William & Mary standout drafted by the Celtics 45th overall in the 2015 NBA Draft. After a decorated career for the Tribe, the middle Thornton became the first W&M player to be drafted since Brant Weidner was taken in the fourth round of the 1983 Draft. Marcus never made it past the G-League within Boston’s basketball tree and saw his rights eventually renounced at the end of his season in Italy in 2017. He was signed by the Canton Charge in November 2017 and was signed to a 10-day contract with Cleveland on February 21, 2018. Like Sir’Dominic Pointer above, Thornton never saw action during his short spell with the Cavs and has been out of the NBA since.
The 2013 NBA Draft has been ample feeding grounds for Draft Rights Retained. 25% of the profiles (7 of 28) created as of now have been from that class, three more were in the first Slipped Through the Cracks in 2015, and three more will be on this one including Marko Todorovic. The Montenegro big man had just turned 21 when the Blazers selected him 45th overall in the aforementioned draft. The club had an overabundance of centers at the time though and he was sent packing to Houston less than a month later with another man who was on the 2015 edition of Slipped Through The Cracks, Kostas Papanikolaou. Marko never even played Summer League for Houston before the club renounced his rights before the 2019-20 season. It may have taken more time than NBA GM’s were willing to give, but Todorovic crushed it his final year in Spain and is now averaging nearly 30 PPG in China after finishing last year at 22.7 points per contest.
The final player profiled on this all-too-lengthy blog of catch-up is Nigel Williams-Goss. The guard was a standout at both Washington and Gonzaga, winning WCC Player of the Year his lone season with the Zags. Despite his impressive resume, NWG lasted until Pick 55 in the 2017 Draft when Utah snared him keeping him in a fairly familiar part of the country. That familiarity quickly went away as he signed a deal with Serbian side Partizan. The club was in dire straits upon his arrival but he was able to help them lift their first trophy in over four years, the Serbian Cup, and was the MVP of the competition. After an All-Star campaign in Greece with Olympiacos, Williams-Goss signed a deal with the Jazz. He only played 10 games in 2019-20 but scored a career-high 10 points in his lone regular-season game in the bubble. Nigel currently has a non-guaranteed contract that runs until the end of the end 2022-23 season.
DRR #4 Alex Abrines (Drafted 2013, Signed July 2016)
Played with Oklahoma City for three seasons, now back at Barcelona.
DRR #5 Ben Pepper (Drafted 1997, Rights Renounced October 2010)
See Sesar, Josip for my fuck up on this one.
DRR #9 Marcus Denmon (Drafted 2012, Signed September 2016)
Was signed by San Antonio and waived on the same day. Currently with the Shanghai Sharks.
DRR #19 Arsalan Kazemi (Drafted 2013, Rights Renounced September 2015)
Appeared in two different preseason games with two different teams neither which drafted him.
DRR #24 Ater Majok (Drafted 2011, Rights Renounced September 2017)
His Wikipedia Tour is phenomenal. Was traded for both Jose Calderon and Quincy Pondexter.
DRR #27 Tomislav Zubcic (Drafted 2012, Signed September 2016)
Played one season with OKC Blue in the G-League. Currently a free agent.
And there you have it! If you’ve reached this point please do me the oh so tiny favor of following me on Twitter @TREVORutley and the site @BEWHYCE. Thank you and look out on those very Twitter handles for polls on who I should profile next before the 2020-2021 NBA season begins!
Photo Credits:
Basketball Reference- Davis Bertans, Vlatko Cancar, Tony Carr, Semaj Christon, Devon Hall, Andrew Harrison, Willy Hernangomez, Kevin Hervey, Dakari Johnson, Chuma Okeke, Cedi Osman, Anzejs Pasecniks, Dario Saric, Tomas Satoransky, Deividas Sirvydis, Nigel Williams-Goss
RealGM- Alec Brown, DeAndre Daniels, Olivier Hanlan, Colton Iverson, Livio Jean-Charles, Ryan Richards, Josip Sesar, Marcus Thornton, Marko Todorovic
Wikpiedia- Dejan Bodiroga